Asylum seekers describe being put in 'jails'

Thousands of asylum seekers are crossing the border every day to Hungary, an eastern outpost of Europe's passport-free Schengen zone, and many are travelling on to the continent's more prosperous west and north in what is Europe's worst refugee crisis since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

Many of the asylum seekers arriving in Hungary, however, want to avoid being registered there for fear of being returned there later as they travel on to richer countries.

Saeed, a 25-year-old Syrian, was one of many refugees complaining about his treatment in Hungary.

Speaking to the Reuters news agency in the Austrian border town of Nickelsdorf, he said he had spent the last six days in Hungary, where he was taken to five camps and had to sleep standing up in an overcrowded room.

"They put us in jails. We were there for a week, so little food, one of these little breads in the morning and one at night," he said.

"Everyone has a cold because there is no heating or anything there.

Analysis: Reaction to Hungary's policy

Europe correspondent Philip Williams reports from London.

[There is] really quite inflammatory language being used here.

Chancellor Werner Fayman said that the treatment of the refugees was like the treatment of the migrants in the Nazi era.

Now that really is a reflection of the way they have been treated, the way they have been busted, the way they have been forced to walk on roads and also those appalling scenes we saw yesterday of bread being thrown over the wire to people kept in camps.

That is how they have been characterised.

That is obviously a deep division between two neighbours.

In reply, Viktor Orban has said the whole of Europe has got this wrong, they do not understand this crisis, these people that are coming in their hundreds of thousands actually do have generally safe haven in places like Turkey, like Iraq, like Jordan and Lebanon and they do not actually need to come to Europe for safety.

They are coming here for other reasons and what Europe should be doing is providing billions and billions of euros to make sure their lives are better in those places so they do not feel the need to come to Europe — a very different approach.

We believe from Tuesday [Hungary] will have the legislation that will enable them to arrest anyone that comes through that they regard as illegal.

What happens to them next? We don't know. What happens to those tens of thousands, perhaps more, that are actually on the move?

What happens to them? Do they pile up against the border? It's going to be interesting to see how Hungary unwinds that or treats these migrants and how that flow is disrupted in the next few days.

"I escaped from Syria because I wasn't treated like a person — like a human being there — and I came to Hungary and I was treated like an animal."

Police in Hungary said they had launched an investigation into the scenes.

In an interview due to be published in the Sunday edition of Austrian newspaper Oesterreich, Mr Faymann said: "It is unacceptable that refugees arrive from Hungary afraid, panicked, hungry and sometimes traumatised."

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, a conservative populist, has taken a tough stance during the crisis and told the German Bild newspaper refugees should be sent back once Hungary closes its borders on September 15.

When asked where they should be sent to, he said: "Where they came from."

"These migrants are not coming to us from war zones but rather from camps in countries neighbouring Syria, like Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. They were safe there."

Mr Orban said he would take a refugee family into his own home if he was sure this would not encourage others to come to Europe, adding that the continent would "perish" if it continued to take in millions of refugees.

Asylum seekers continue to flow into Germany

Authorities in Munich said they were overwhelmed by the influx of refugees streaming into the Bavarian capital — with more than 10,000 arriving on Saturday — and urged other German cities to pull their weight.

Germany has so far taken the lion's share of migrants, admitting 450,000 people this year, with chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to relax asylum rules for Syrians drawing praise from the refugees, but also sharp criticism from domestic allies and counterparts abroad.

In Munich, regional officials have sounded the alarm and urged other states in Germany — seen as the promised land by many of those seeking safe haven in Europe — to do their bit.

"We no longer know what to do with refugees," mayor Dieter Reiter said, amid fears many of the new arrivals would have to spend the night outdoors.

Mr Reiter added he was "very concerned with the developments", noting that if other areas took in several hundred refugees it would "help to avoid chaos".

"Munich and Bavaria can't overcome this great challenge alone," a spokeswoman for the Bavarian authorities said, adding the city was struggling to find beds for all the additional people.

As the newcomers arrived, some onlookers at Munich station held welcome signs to greet them. But there were far fewer than several days ago, when cheering volunteers handed out groceries and children's toys.

As the continent scrambles to respond to the biggest movement of people since WWII, sharp divisions have emerged between the EU's 28 member states, at both a government level and on the streets.